This attitude which says once you get to a certain height on a mountain its each person for themselves is a modern Phenomenon I was told a couple of years ago. The problem with each person for themselves is that you then can’t trust anyone in your group.

I believe(not a 100% sure) that in shipping if you are on a boat and you get a distress call from another boat and you are the closest you are obliged by law to go to their aid. I don’t know what laws govern climbing. Does anyone? Is everyone a law upon themselves on Everest? What do you think?

Drifter WTF are you on?!?! You know absolutely NOTHING about high altitude mountaineering and you say something as insensitve and stupid as \"if it is too dangerous to bring them down, you take the chance and you try to bring them down. You all go up there together, you should all come down together.\" You have never had to make those decisions in a position like that so STFU. While you're at it ,what're you're views on the space-time continuum?

In part, I completely agree with you here. In my mind, it is a symbol of how pointless big mountain climbing has become...it's the fact that people have forgotten to be human, and the fact that the pressure to succeed due to sponsors and egos is greater than humanity and brotherhood.

The only difference between a sinking vessel and this though, is that at such high altitudes, the human body is literally dying. It is strained beyond its normal limits and often a person will literally only have enough energy to move one foot ahead of the other. This would make it very dangerous to try and help someone else as the chances then of you both dying are good. Rather one death than two.

This said, I think the circus that big mountain climbing has become, it's almost as if humans have forgotten WHY these mountains get climbed. A lot of it has become about saying that you have climbed the highest mountain, rather than the realization that humans are ultimately very fragile beings, and for me, a big mountain climb is all about realizing how precious and beautiful it is to even be alive. It's disgusting that a person could leave another for dead just so you can say you climbed a silly mountain.

What if nature had just ended up that all the highest mountains were a mile lower? Then all of this would be a pointless joke anyway.

Drifter - here is something for you to do this weekend when you are not climbing

Go to the ice rink, fasten your belt around your neck to the point of suffocation - sit there for an hour, then get a drunk mate to lie on the rink (he needs to be drunk - dead weight human is a difficult thing to carry) then pick him up and carry him around on the rink for an hour or so

This obviously does not simulate the real conditions but you will have a better idea of what you are talking about - I havent tried this so it would make you somewhat of an authority on the matter

Ok Drifter, lets be serious then, if you propose that it would have been (or should be) mandatory that fellow climbers bring stricken/injured comrads off of the north ridge 8400 odd meters above see level.

How do you think it should have been done? what method would you propose be used to recover the aforesaid stricken comrads? In your experience obviously because others might have different techniques.

your ignorance is astounding. your comparison to a sinking ship is pretty pathetic. Seriously you need to get a life.

@ClimbZA, before you carry on tauting Ian Woodall's \"saintliness\" by even covering the story of him wanting to go back to Everest to cover up Francys Arsentiev's body, let's not forget what an @sshole he was in '96, and why some of his team members left before the fact. IMO he is a disgrace to all South Africans. Team leader! Yeah right. What was an inexperienced member of his team doing on the summit at 5pm with no O's?

If you have DSTV check out the series on Discovery Channel at the moment called \"Everest\"...then you can come back and talk morals with the folks here on the forum.

Everest is a circus, no debate there, but nevertheless is still one of the most extreme places on earth for human beings to be, do you understand that whether the guide/leader has moral objections to leaving someone in trouble or not...HE HAS NO CHOICE!...he WILL die helping the guy if its up in the deathzone or ,even in some circumstances, lower down.

Would you stop and help knowing that you would die too?? get real! of course you wouldnt!

The people climbing surely must undertand that whether they agree with the unwritten rules or not, if they get into trouble its up to them to get out of it again. This is not a sunday school picnic Drifter, this is the real world.

Drifter, you'd be the first one to leave everyone behind and run away with your tail between your legs...but, from what I gather about you [from your 'posts'] you wouldnt have the b@lls to even attempt something like Everest. You reckon you get scared on a 15?! HuH!!! Puhleeeez, leave the serious climbing for the big boys and girls and in the meantime STFU. You are annoying and insulting to those who actually know better.

Hey Drifter. I understand your concern over the issue or rather lack of morality... But you need to understand that Everest is a different ball game altogether. If you were talking about leaving a mate (with a broken leg) at the base of one of the crags in Boven to get back to JHB in time for work...I'd be on your side, absolutely!

But not on Everest. Watch one of the documentaries, read one of the books... The guys/girls taking on the Mother of all mountains train for months/years before setting foot on the mountain...and all this training allows them to do, is drag themselves to a point of physical exertion where will-power alone gets you to the summit. And then you still have to get down...

There is no margin for error, you can not carry a body down... The ice shelfs are treacherous, one wrong foot and you slide off the mountain...now imagine if you were trying to drag a person/body off the mountain...?

As nice as the idea is, unfortunately it doesn't work on Everest. You obviously watch those around you when you're climbing, because you don't want to see them get hurt. You tell them not to go on, to rather turn round and head back. If they're struggling and choose to carry on, they're aware of the consequences. As harsh as this sounds they're willingly endangering those they're climbing with...their team can not be expected to endanger themselves in order to rescue or retrieve them.

@ClimbZA, before you carry on tauting Ian Woodall's \"saintliness\" by even covering the story of him wanting to go back to Everest to cover up Francys Arsentiev's body, let's not forget what an @sshole he was in '96, and why some of his team members left before the fact. IMO he is a disgrace to all South Africans.

Just posting news as we receive it. Certainly not calling him a saint. I got to hear 'some details' from certain members of the SA team who came back (early) from the Sunday Times Expedition and based on their reports... I don't like the guy

like the others I am thinking that either (1) you are more opinionated than informed or (2) you are taking the piss out of us. In either case I will make this last ditch effort to keep the conversation on a cordial level. I think your mountaineering education is lacking in the whole and in a feeble attempt to advance your mountaineering career here is some suggested reading to help your to the next level:

In the case of (1):
Mountaineering accidents at altitude has always caught the public’s attention. The first big one was Edward Whymper’s successful 1865 attempt on the Matterhorn where on descent, four members of the party slipped and were killed (and never found)- only the breaking of the rope saved Whymper and the two remaining guides from the same fate (his book “Scrambles among the Alps” would be a good starting place for your reading). Since then many thousands of accidents have happened and your reading should include the crowd pleasers such as “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, “Touching the Void” by Joe Simpson (turned into a video if the couch potato education appeals more) or “Left For Dead” by Beck Weathers. This should get your expectations on the drama side on the right place but please read these with the proverbial pinch of salt. After this you might be ready for the more honest and sober publications starting with something like the Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters by Hamish Maclnnes before moving on to “The Climb” by Anatoli Boukreev, Alpine Accidents in North American Mountaineering (or their on-line database at http://alpineclub-edm.org/accidents/index.asp) and the like. After which a return to the questions and statements you have made will reward you with some very good insights into one of the most challenging ethical debates in modern climbing.

For the sake of my (and potentially other’s) time, please leave this subject (and all related ones) until you have done the reading.

In the case of (2):
I suggest the parody novel “The Ascent of Rum Doodle” by W. E. Bowman. Few S-Africans have had the pleasure of this read by an author with far superior skills in the area of pulling someone else’s pisser. Even though a parody, it has become in some circles one of the most famous and celebrated books of mountaineering literature.

Good-bye until then

P.S. the books I have mentions is well worth reading and no joking matter so do not take this kind advice lightly

\"Straddling the top of the world, one foot in Tibet and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently at the vast sweep of earth below.\"

Some climbers on Everest get tunnel vision and nothing else matters than getting to the summit so people dying around them that need comfort or assistance doesn't matter to them as long as they just get to stand on the top of Everest.